


nine terrible cups of tea (and at least one equally terrible cup of coffee)

by cestmabiologie



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Epilogue, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/F, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestmabiologie/pseuds/cestmabiologie
Summary: Dani tries to master the art of making a proper cup of tea. It goes just about as well as you'd expect. (1987 - 1994)
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 18
Kudos: 162





	nine terrible cups of tea (and at least one equally terrible cup of coffee)

**One**

“Really you could just throw a tea bag into your mug, pour some water on top, and call it a tea. But we’re better than that.”

Dani isn’t convinced but she tries her best to follow the steps as Jamie patiently describes them. She talks about making tea with the casual confidence of someone who believes that Dani can will a good cup of tea to exist. As if this isn’t the first time that she has tried to hold Dani’s hand through the process. Dani’s pretty sure it won’t be the last time either, but she tries to wield some of Jamie’s confidence as her own.

“If you want to be really proper, you can even warm the pot first with some hot water from the kettle and, you know, just dump it down the sink.”

Dani swirls the hot water around inside her teapot, feels it warm under her palms. It’s nice. Wasteful, but nice.

“What does this do?”

“No idea. Somebody probably decided that it makes the tea taste better.”

“Okay,” She drops two teabags in. One for herself, and one for the pot, according to Jamie who’s not leaving tea totally up to chance and Dani’s efforts; her arm is soft and cool against Dani’s as they stand shoulder-to-shoulder at their kitchen counter, each with their own pot of steeping tea.

“Now here’s where you might make a mortal enemy of a Brit: adding milk to your cup before or after the tea.”

“Does it have to have milk?” Dani asks, thinking _Aren’t there people who drink their black tea black, like coffee? That’s a thing, right?_

Dani can feel Jamie twitching a smirk beside her without having to look. 

“It has milk if you’re making English tea.”

She remembers the looks she got from Hannah and Owen and even the children whenever she’d made an attempt at tea. She can’t remember when she’d added the milk. Jamie, for sure, must be exaggerating the offense.

"But which one’s the right way?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t really care as long as it’s the right amount of milk.” Dani realizes that Jamie’s already gone ahead and poured her own cup without her, milk and all, and she’s missed it. She pours her own tea and splashes in milk until its colour matches the tea in Jamie’s cup. 

They look the same to Dani. 

“Alright,” Jamie says, “let’s have a taste shall we?”

They taste the same to Dani, but Jamie’s brow furrows just a little as she takes the cup away from her lips. And then she starts laughing. 

“Okay, how is that possible? We did the exact same thing!” Dani takes another sip from her own cup to prove her point. It tastes fine! It’s tea!

“I really have no idea, Dani,” Jamie’s still laughing. “You’re just shite at making tea.”

**Two**

Jamie's been trying to relax with a book in the bedroom when she hears the beeping coming from another room. Just three little beeps, then nothing. A minute later, the three beeps chirp through her focus again.

When it happens a third time, she finally puts down the book to shout. 

“What is that?”

“What’s what?” comes Dani’s reply from across the apartment. Then the beeps make themselves known once more. 

Then: “Oh. It’s the microwave. I got distracted.”

Owen had bought them a microwave as a housewarming gift. It was a convection microwave, he’d told them proudly, which apparently made it special because you could microwave your food on a metal tray if you wanted. The idea was that they could warm up their takeaway faster, or cook frozen dinners (Owen’s very generous way of chiding them for both being awful cooks). Jamie hated it. It was big and ugly and had faux-wood paneling on the side. She’d rather stick to making burned stews on the stovetop. 

Dani appears in the doorway with a mug in each hand. She holds out one mug to Jamie. 

“I made you tea.”

“What, in the microwave?”

Dani shrugs and sips from her mug. 

“No.”

“It’s fine—”

“Absolutely not.”

**Three**

It’s a quiet-ish day at The Leafling and, to be honest, Dani is sort of enjoying the peace of arranging flower displays and curling ribbons. The sun is warm through the windows. 

Jamie is laid up in bed with some sort of cold. She’s being a big baby about it, too, Dani is surprised to realize. Her wife doesn’t like it when she can’t be useful.

Speaking of certain wives who shouldn’t be up, Dani can hear steps coming down the stairwell that connects the shop to their apartment. The shop’s back door pushes open a moment later and Jamie appears with jacket on and her curls stuff up into a hat. She’s pale and her nose is pink and tender-looking around the nostrils. 

“What are you doing down here?” Dani demands in her most teacherly voice, but Jamie clearly has plans to go out, not back upstairs. 

Jamie’s voice is raspy and hoarse. 

“I need to go out to the shops and get some more milk. Ours is off.”

“I had some in my cereal this morning and it was fine.”

Jamie coughs into her collar. 

“The date on it’s fine. But I add it to my tea and it’s curdled.”

“Oh.” Dani’d left the tea steeping for her before she’d come downstairs. 

Then: “It’s probably the lemon doing that. In your tea, I mean.”

“There’s lemon in my tea?”

Dani nods. “There’s honey in it, too. It’s supposed to help with your sore throat.’

Jamie sighs, then sniffles, then seems to deflate a little.

“I’m gonna be honest: it sounds absolutely disgusting.”

But Dani insists that she at least give it a try (without milk), that it will make her feel better (it does, a little, admittedly), and that, who knows, she might like it (she does not). 

**Four**

Summer heat hits hard, and The Leafling doesn’t have air conditioning. The ceiling fans do nothing more than push hot air around the shop. The plants slump in their pots (which annoys Jamie), and fat houseflies keep finding their way indoors, only to bang themselves relentlessly against the windows until they fall dead on the sills (which annoys Dani). Everything is slightly damp with sweat or condensation.

“This is something my ex-almost mother-in-law used to make,” Dani says, stirring the ice around in the pitcher with a wooden spoon.

“You know there’s probably a less complicated way to say ‘ex-almost mother-in-law’.” Jamie says. Her hair is sticking to her neck, and her gardening gloves feel like they’re being peeled off of her skin as she takes them off.

“She used to make it for my, you know, _Eddie_ and me in the summer when we were kids,” Dani hesitated. “I don’t know. It just always reminds me of the best parts of summer.”

But when she looks up Jamie has a glass and is holding it against her cheek. 

“You know,” she says, “I do know what iced tea is. It’s not exactly a foreign concept.”

Jamie is thoughtful as she drinks the tea slowly. 

“So,” she says finally. “This is what makes Poppins think of summer.

“It’s kind of a funny taste isn’t it? Cold tea on purpose.”

Jamie gets up and pulls Dani into a hug that’s nice, but not altogether pleasant — their skin clings together and comes apart audibly in the heat and they both smell very strongly of themselves. 

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” Jamie says into her shoulder. 

“I’m going to go upstairs and put the kettle on.”

**Five**

“What is it?”

The gift sits on their kitchen counter, out of place and mysterious with its glass-and-stainless steel modernity next to their wooden cutting boards, cluttered and kind of oily spicy jars, and that obnoxious faux-wood panelled microwave. 

“Owen says it’s a French press. He was really excited about some Danish company. Said it’s apparently great for beginners.”

Jamie makes a note to herself to somehow ask Owen to stop giving them gifts for their kitchen. 

“I didn’t think Owen drank coffee.”

Dani looks thoughtful, “I don’t think he does.”

Owen’s gift doesn’t come with instructions, and neither one of them wants to ring Owen up to ask for help. Dani takes charge, grinding the coffee beans (which Owen had also generously provided) in the spice grinder… and then washing out the grinder and starting again when Jamie points out that the fresh grounds reek of coriander. 

They aren’t sure if they’re supposed to give it all a stir once the water’s been added. Or when to press the plunger. Or how long it’s supposed to sit. Their first attempt produces faintly coffee-flavoured water. Their second a grainy, chewable mess. 

The French press gets relegated to a high shelf above the stove, behind a fern. Eventually it will pinch-hit as a flower pot and Dani will love how the glass reveals the root systems buried in the soil. 

**Six**

“This tea tastes weird.”

It’s Dani who says it. 

Jamie looks up from the arrangement she’s been working on. It’s wedding season and The Leafling has been swamped with orders for bouquets and table arrangements. Jamie’s been going back and forth on this particular order all week with a bride who seems unhappy no matter how precisely she tries to follow the bride’s vision. Frankly, it’s been pissing her off (the last time she’d come in and rejected Jamie’s work, Dani had sensibly stepped in to take over the conversation before Jamie could get their shop shut down for punching a customer).

“Are you sure you didn’t accidentally drink vase water?” 

She picks up her own cup and takes a sip. The milk must have been added too soon and seized up the brewing. The tea tasted like nothing. Dani is watching her. 

“Yeah, this is pretty bad.”

Dani says nothing.

“Oh shut up. I’m allowed to have off days, too, you know.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Dani says, but she’s smiling. 

**Seven**

Jamie somehow manages to drink vase water. 

Neither of them can explain how it got into her tea cup or where her actual tea had gone. 

**Eight**

“Hey.”

The word is spoken into Jamie’s hairline and followed with a kiss. She smiles, half-awake, and reaches to pull Dani to her so she can kiss her properly. Her hand jostles a tray and something makes a precarious, jangling sound. 

“What’s this?” she rubs at her eyes. It’s still mostly dark in the room. 

“You’re up early.”

Dani’s at the side of their bed with a serving tray. She’s barefoot, still in her pyjamas and, from what Jamie can tell, still pretty sleepy herself. 

"What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion.” Dani places the tray on the bed and climbs in next to Jamie slowly, careful not to tip anything on the tray. 

"I just thought it would be nice to have the morning together. I bought scones.” Dani warps her voice around the word in a way that is definitely not the American pronunciation, but just as definitely not a passable approximation of Jamie’s accent. As Dani hopes it would, it makes Jamie smile. 

“I see that. Scones.”

“Mm-hmm. And biscuits,” Dani never could manage that one without the secret sort of laugh that says that the Rich Tea biscuit that she’s picking up off a plate will only ever be a _cookie_ to her. 

It’s all lovely. The biscuits, the morning, Dani: lovely. 

And then, of course, there is the matter of the tea. 

A few problems meet Jamie immediately as she takes a tentative sip. First, it’s cold. Second, even with what looks like an alright amount of milk (Jamie notes that Dani’s been getting better on this front)...it’s bracingly bitter. 

She bravely takes another sip to avoid spoiling the otherwise perfectly cozy moment. Something solid dislodges itself from the bottom of her cup and hits her wetly on the nose. Jamie can’t help but splutter a little, and the thing plops back into the cup. It’s the teabag.

“Uh, Dani?” Jamie realizes that she’s poking a bruise a little here, and Dani looks so happy next to her, breaking off pieces of scone with her fingers.

“How long was the tea left sitting?”

Dani’s brow furrows.

“I’m not sure how early you wake up these days,” she says. “I may have made it… a while ago. Is it okay?”

Jamie gently places the cup back onto the tray. 

“It’s just a little on the cool side, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Dani tests the side of her cup with the back of my hand, as if to memorize what _a little on the cool side_ means to Jamie. 

“I can just warm it up in the microw—”

“ _No_. Let’s just enjoy our morning.”

**Nine**

“Does anyone who drinks this stuff actually enjoy it?”

They’re in bed, limb flung loosely over limb. On the TV screen, a woman sits tensely under a tree while another sticks her bare arm right into a beehive. Bees swarm up her sleeves and into her undone braid.

“I think it’s pretty nice,” Dani says, “It’s peppermint. It’s supposed to be relaxing.”

Jamie curls up against Dani’s chest. She cradles her cup between them, more for its warmth than for any interest in drinking it. 

“It tastes like hot toothpaste.”

On the screen, the bee charmer has returned with a mason jar full of honey. She invites the other woman to have a taste. 

“Do you think they’re gonna get together?” Dani says. Jamie considers the scene for a few seconds.

“Yeah. But it’s a little weird to go after your dead brother’s fiancée like that isn’t it?”

Her own mug empty on the bedside table, Dani picks up Jamie’s abandoned tea. It’s still warm and it’s left a warm spot on the blankets between them.

“I guess it’s a little weird. I still want them to get together.”

Jamie makes a sound that might be agreement, but her eyes are drifting closed. 

She’ll fall asleep before the movie’s over. Dani will fill her in on the details she’s missed over breakfast, before they have to return the tape to the video store.

**Ten**

“It’s so nice to have someone cook for me for a change,” Owen says, pleasantly. It’s not often that he’s been able to come around to their place over the years (and lately it’s become even less often). 

“You’ve always done so much for us,” Dani calls from the kitchen. Something clatters loudly into the sink. “We just want to return the favour.”

Owen glances at Jamie, who confirms with a nod that it was, of course, Dani who had had such a thoughtful idea. 

“I’m just nervous to serve dinner to the accomplished chef and restaurateur Owen Sharma,” Jamie says. “I’ll have you know that if it were my idea, I’d have just gotten takeaway and arranged it artfully onto plates. Real plates, of course. Nothing but the best for our Owen.”

Dani comes in then with a tray and busies herself with setting up the table. Jamie clears away the half-melted candles and clutter to make room. 

“I thought we could have some tea before dinner.”

The hesitation that hangs in the air is palpable mist off a pond.

Owen clears his throat and politely reaches for a cup. 

“Did you make it, Dani?”

“She’s been practicing,” Jamie says, drawing one knee up to her chest and reaching over to get a cup for herself.

“She says I’m not allowed to be a judge anymore. Says I’m biased against her, but really my tastebuds are probably shot. So, you are her lucky new victim.”

They toast to friendships and loves that are never truly lost and gamely drink Dani’s latest attempt at a proper cup of tea.

“You know what,” Owen says after a moment. “It’s not that bad.”

“Really?”

“You hear that, Poppins?” Jamie says, with another half toast of her cup. “You did it.”

“Really?” Dani says again. She takes her own sip, searching the taste for what might have made this brew remarkable. It just tastes like tea to her. 

“It’s good?”

Owen and Jamie both make non-committal sounds, but neither do they abandon their drinks.

“It’s not the most amazing tea I’ve ever had,” Jamie admits. “But it’s absolutely, _absolutely_ a decent cup of tea.”

“You know what?” Dani says, “I’ll take it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
